Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/12

 swung down into the dip of the valley with an avalanche of bold masonry, they carried the dead Ameer; through the western gate, a crumbling marble structure, incrusted with symbolistic figures and archaic terra-cotta medallions, and topped by a lacy, fretted lotus-bud molding; through the maze of the town, with its crooked streets, its low, white houses, its cool gardens ablaze with peach and almond and scarlet flowering peepul trees; through the main bazaar that stretched like a Suruk rug dimmed by the Hand of Time into smoky purple and dull orange; on toward the river where the young sun had crumpled the morning mists into torn gauze veils.

Bolt upright, as during life, the corpse sat on a chair of state that spread up and out like the tail of a peacock. He was attired in his most splendid costume: the arms encircled by jeweled bracelets, shimmering necklaces of pearls and garnets and moonstones and yellow Poonah diamonds hanging to the waist shawl, a huge, carved emerald falling like a drop of green fire from the small, twisted turban, the face painted and powdered, the pointed beard care fully curled and dyed a vivid blue with indigo, between his feet his favorite kalian waterpipe, an immense affair of iron, inlaid with gold arabesques and studded with uncut rubies.

Almost grim, by contrast, was the naked, straight, six-foot blade which lay across his knees. Simple, it was, blue-gray, without engravings or ornaments of any sort.

All the dignitaries of the land were there to speed his soul.